In Barack Obama’s America, rich people who vote on cultural issues rather than economic self-interest are principled and self-sacrificing. People of more modest means who do so are credulous and bitter.

The assumption is that only liberal attitudes are normal and well-adjusted: If only these small-town people could earn more income, get an advanced degree and move to a major metropolitan area, they could shed their chrysalis of social conservatism.

And the thing is, they are kind of, kind of right. Studies show that the more educated you are, the more liberal values you have. What studies don’t show is is this a product of a liberal education (indoctrination) or is it because it’s the better way to think? Since higher degrees will turn you back to being conservative – there’s a serious question to be answered. [clarification: By higher degrees, I mean masters/doctorates etc. If you have a higher degree, you’re likely to be conservative.][ps on the clarification: I just read this within the last month but can’t find a link so I won’t ask you to trust my memory on this. ]

But let’s go back to the problem. Turn the statement around for just a bit and see how insulted black people would feel if John McCain had said this: (I am using this demographic as an example because in the press they are taken to be a voting bloc. Any black person who is Republican just doesn’t count. How else can President Bush continue to get attacked for antiblack ideals with his cabinet?)

“Black people have fallen through the cracks for the last 25 years of both Democratic and Republican administrations. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to gangs or radical preachers or antipathy toward whites or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Yes folks. It is insulting. I am a redneck geek. I’m also educated. And I’m insulted. Obama is an elitist snob who has no insight into anything other than liberal ideology.

It has been sickening over the years to watch Republicans, who always rally to the aid of the country’s wealthiest citizens, successfully cast themselves as pork-rind-eating, NASCAR-watching, gun-toting populists. To have the current White House occupant (Yale, Harvard Business School, son of a president) run as a good old boy should have been the final straw.

“Sickening”???? Wealthy people do tote guns. Wealthy people do like NASCAR. Wealthy people can be good old boys. And yet it sickens yet another white elitist to even consider that such a mindset can exist.

I’ve been trying to find the right words for a certain theory, and I can’t quite do it yet. It has to do with how a candidate feels about America – they have to be fundamentally, dispositionally comfortable with it. Not in a way that glosses over or excuses its flaws, but comfortable in the way a long-term married couple is comfortable. That includes not delighting in its flaws, or crowing them at every opportunity as proof of your love. I mean a simple quiet sense of awe and pride, its challenges and flaws and uniqueness and tragedies considered. You don’t win the office by being angry we’re not something else; you win by being enthused we can be something better. You can fake the latter. But people sense the former.

And Classical Values notes the latest switch from guns to gay marriage as the “issue”. He doesn’t “…appreciate Obama’s apparent contention that my thoughts are not my own.” (ht Instapundit)

That’s that tickler. Yes, demographics matter. To advertisers, to elections, to speech writers, to presidential candidates. But not to individuals!!

In polite company it isn’t mentioned that because you are [insert demographic here] you must think XYZ.
Seriously. Try it on your friends and neighbors and see how well it goes over. Do I hear a ‘lead balloon’?

You can use demographics on strangers however. We get to talk about the “MSM” – but if I’m ever in front of a journalist from the NYTimes, I’ll assume nothing until we’ve conversed.
We get to talk about “San Fransiscans” or “Texans” or “Stuff White People Like” or “Hard working immigrants” or any number of different demographic themes when we are talking about strangers.

However – when someone is talking to us we expect to be respected as thinking reasonable people and not as a stereotype. Mr. Obama was talking to one demographic about another. He thought he was golden. It’s a new age however and he’s a presidential contender. So anytime he speaks we all need to listen as if he’s talking to us.

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One thought on “Let’s keep the gaffe rolling”

Thanks for summarizing all that so I didn’t have to drudge through it all!! I knew I had a bad gut feeling about Obama, but thought it was mostly the inexperience that bugged me…maybe it was a snob alert instead.